I’m Dr. Sheetal Temara — a cybersecurity professional, researcher, writer, and lifelong learner working at the intersection of offensive security, artificial intelligence, and real-world risk.

I currently serve as a Senior Vice President in Cyber Security at a financial institution, where my work focuses on offensive security research, application penetration testing, vulnerability validation, regulatory security testing, threat modeling, secure code review, and risk reduction across complex enterprise environments. My day-to-day work is rooted in one core belief: security should not stop at finding vulnerabilities. It should help people understand risk, make better decisions, and build stronger systems.

My technical background spans web application security, API security, mobile and cloud security fundamentals, AI and machine learning for cybersecurity, agentic AI, adversarial AI, secure configuration, vulnerability remediation, and security automation. I have led and contributed to enterprise-level penetration testing efforts, developed repeatable testing methodologies, supported remediation validation, mentored junior engineers, and translated highly technical findings into meaningful business and security outcomes.

Beyond my corporate cybersecurity work, I am an active researcher, scholarly author, and peer reviewer. My research interests include AI-enhanced cybersecurity training, responsible data ethics, ransomware, dark web threats, deepfakes, quantum-era cryptography, IoT security, cyber ethics, and the evolving relationship between humans and intelligent systems. I have published and contributed to work across cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, machine learning, privacy, data ethics, and financial-sector security.

I am also the creator of ScatteredBrain where I unpack the messy, fascinating, and sometimes uncomfortable intersections of AI, cybersecurity, human judgment, ethics, and the future of work. The newsletter is part cyber brain dump, part research reflection, and part practical conversation built for people who want to understand emerging technology without the fear-based noise.

For me, cybersecurity has never been just a technical career. It is a responsibility. It is a way of protecting people, systems, trust, and opportunity. Whether I am conducting a penetration test, writing about AI risk, mentoring others, reviewing research, or building community, my goal is the same: to make complex security topics more understandable, useful, and human.